


the war inside our souls

by madnessiseverything



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Flashbacks, Hallucinations, Mentions of War, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, coda to ep 10, fuzzy reality, klaus doesn't take well to sudden gunfire, reality gets a little hard to see, takes place during the bowling alley shooting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-26
Updated: 2019-02-26
Packaged: 2019-11-06 03:34:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 984
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17932067
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/madnessiseverything/pseuds/madnessiseverything
Summary: When Klaus spots the armed people storming the bowling alley, it feels like all sound fades into nothing, a faint ringing starting up. His siblings’ voices fade away and his eyes zero in on the rifles in the masked peoples’ hands. Panic closes around his throat with an iron grip. The first bullet flies and he blinks.or the one where klaus can't quite tell if he is in a bowling alley or back in the trenches.





	the war inside our souls

**Author's Note:**

> so this show, huh? i binged it and have been vibrating with feelings about it ever since. finally getting my fic writing urges out there :D hope you enjoy!  
> betaed by the lovely [sanne](http://outruneverything.tumblr.com/).
> 
> (title from fault line - the rigs)

When Klaus spots the armed people storming the bowling alley, it feels like all sound fades into nothing, a faint ringing starting up. His siblings’ voices fade away and his eyes zero in on the rifles in the masked peoples’ hands. Panic closes around his throat with an iron grip. The first bullet flies and he blinks.

 

Next to him, Dave is screaming for him to get down - are you insane, come down here! - and he throws himself behind the sandbags, fingers grasping for his gun but coming up empty. Fuck, it’s so loud. Shots ring out, explosions sound and he clasps his hands over his ears. He forces his eyes to close again and suddenly Diego is screaming. That can’t be right. His eyes fly open and he’s looking at Allison, their brothers ducked behind another counter. He wants to laugh. He keeps his hands pressed to his ears, fingernails digging into his scalp. 

 

“Maybe they’re here for Kenny’s birthday!” He doesn’t listen to his own words, instead finds himself desperately wishing his hands could block out the gunfire and the faint sound of his unit shouting.

 

Something shatters to his left and he jumps, pushing himself further underneath the counter. His heart is stuck in his throat and god, he wants the noise to go away. He doesn’t want this, doesn’t want the feeling of his fingers wishing for a gun to point at the enemy. He doesn’t want the flickers of the trenches, doesn’t want the dark edges of night creeping into his view of the bowling alley. 

 

He sees Thomas but that can’t be right because Thomas died during the second month and time has passed since then, right? He sees Graham, mangled, shot to shit, blood leaking onto pristine floors that don’t belong into the war and Klaus thinks he might throw up. Glass shatters and sounds too much like the explosion that had embedded shrapnel in his arm five days into his soldier life. He flinches and bumps into someone that isn’t Dave, someone that ducks underneath a counter in a bowling alley.

 

Klaus digs his teeth into his bottom lip until he tastes blood and pushes himself onto his hands and knees. His fingers itch for a gun and his head feels so very unprotected, feels like such an easy target. He crawls to another counter, just barely registering Luther throwing bowling balls and shooters going down with a knife in their chest. He blinks, wills the approaching flashes of grenades and comrades going down around him away, wills himself to drop his hands from his ears. He has to help, has to defend himself. He doesn’t want to die in a war he wasn’t even born for. 

 

He doesn’t think when the first thing his hands reach is a birthday cake, doesn’t think when he throws it towards the nearest armed person, barely thinks as he ducks back to crouch next to Allison. His breath is stuttering and fuck, Klaus doesn’t know what’s happening anymore when he spots Dave next to Allison, gun ready and eyes only briefly looking to the right to catch Klaus’s wandering gaze. Allison didn’t come with him, why is she here, shit he has to protect her, why can he hear his siblings’ ragged breathing?

 

He peeks over the counter - it’s a counter, he can feel the plastic, it’s not sandbags, why does he have to remind himself of that - and finds the exit blocked by a red gas mask. “They’re blocking the exit,” he screams because his siblings have to know, how else is he going to get them away from the war zone if they don’t know, how is he going to get them out of here? 

 

Allison’s hand is suddenly on his side, repeatedly patting and he looks down to see her pointing towards the lanes and he doesn’t know if the weight he feels dropping is relief or his heart sinking to his stomach because they will be in the line of fire. He can hear Dave just to his left, can hear him explaining why they duck and don’t retreat, can hear him list the many reasons why they need to stay put and Klaus almost doesn’t follow when he sees Diego and Luther and Allison jump up. But he does and he runs. 

 

Bullets whiz past his ears and fuck, why are his feet hitting dry earth instead of bowling lanes, why can he hear Dave screaming his name, why is he running away from Dave, he can’t leave him behind! He turns his head, looks behind but Dave isn’t there. A bullet flies past his ear and he throws himself towards the pins. 

 

His ears are ringing but his siblings are safe, there are no guns, no sandbags, no Thomas, no Graham, no Dave, because of course they aren’t - here, alive, with him. They aren’t. Klaus wheezes a laugh and runs past Ben through the door. 

 

(When he later runs into the theater, warnings about Cha Cha leaving his lips before his siblings scream at him to ‘get down, Klaus, get down’ with the same urgency as Dave would do, when bullets once again fly over his head, Klaus fears he’s going really, truly crazy. When he can feel something underneath his skin hum, when his clenched fists glow blue, he wonders if tugging at the feeling will finally make the sound of war go away. And when Ben shows up in the same blue light, when tentacles rip apart the shooters, Klaus doesn’t see a war zone anymore. He feels his brother’s rage, sees him dispatch anybody with a rifle, hears his scream. He doesn’t see Graham’s mangled body, doesn’t feel the itch for a gun. He sees himself finally doing something to help. The sobbed laughter pushing past his lips tears the vice of terror around his lungs apart and Klaus breathes.)

**Author's Note:**

> i have a Lot of emotions about klaus and trust me, there are a whole bunch more fics coming. drop by sanne's and my [tua tumblr](https://thedisasterandthedeadone.tumblr.com/) to scream about this show <3


End file.
